Lawrence Wright Quotes

After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.

Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.

Policy makers, like most people, normally feel that they already know all the psychology and all the sociology they are likely to need for their decisions. I don't think they are right, but that's the way it is.

Men can reason themselves into almost any sort of opinion if they are so inclined.

When you're surrounded by people who share the same set of assumptions as you, you start to think that's reality.

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it. The moment we want to disbelieve anything we have previously believed we suddenly discover not only that there is a mass of evidence against it but that this evidence was starting us in the face all the time.

Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions.

One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds.

None of us is immune to suggestion. We are social beings and live in a social world.

Let one persuade many, and he becomes confirmed and convinced, and cares for no better evidence.

We can't assume what we don't believe.

A good deal of our politics is psychological.

You cannot possibly persuade people that what they have firmly in mind is not so.

You don't change anybody's mind with political humor. You just reinforce what people already believe.

In intelligence you can justify almost anything you want to if you go about it with enough zeal and effort which is what happened.

Nothing is more fallacious than to expect to produce any valuable or permanent results in political projects by relying merely on the reason of men. Men are ... for the most part governed by the impulses of passion.

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

Most people when they come after you for advice come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.

… propaganda on its own cannot force its way into unwilling minds; neither can it inculcate something wholly new; nor can it keep people persuaded once they have ceased to believe. It penetrates only into minds already open, and rather than instill opinion it articulates and justifies opinions already present in the minds of its recipients. The gifted propagandist brings to a boil ideas and passions already simmering in the minds of his hearers. he echoes their innermost feelings.

A growing body of psychology research shows that incompetence deprives people of the ability to recognize their own incompetence. To put it bluntly, dumb people are too dumb to know it…. Along the same lines, people who aren't talented in a given area tend not to be able to recognize the talents or good ideas of others, from co-workers to politicians. This may impede the democratic process, which relies on citizens having the capacity to identify and support the best candidate or policy.

It's human nature to make the complex manageable and determine things that fit your conclusions. That's bias.

In psychology and behavioral economics, people have shown that if you just describe options in a certain way, or make some features of a situation salient, you can get people to do and even see what you want. You don't have to be a Jedi to manipulate people's attention.

I am ultimately convinced that people must first be told that so and so is great, and then, after a period of given time, they come to believe it for themselves.